In case you're interested, below is my homily from this weekend (13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A)
When you walked into the Church this morning, you probably dipped your fingers into the waters of the Baptismal font. Do we do this so much out of habit that we forget? Maybe, you still have the drops of water on your shirt or blouse!
Do you ever think of the babies and young children who were just baptized in the last week and months at this very font? Do you think of the newly baptized who came into the Church this past Easter? It wasn’t but 2 months ago or so!
We make such a spectacle, and I don’t mean it’s a bad thing, but we make a big deal around the celebrations of Baptism and the other Sacraments. But, do we remember? Do you and I treasure the graces that we receive and that other members of our Church family receive at this font and in this Church?
St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, “Are you not aware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death”?
Does going to Church make a difference in your life? Or, is it still making a difference in your life? When you fall down in sinful ways, does your faith and your baptism help you to rise again? Have you taken the Bible in your hands recently and allowed God to form your heart by His Word?
St. Paul knew his Jewish faith well as a Pharisee! He knew his scriptures and practiced his faith so well that he was willing to defend his faith against what he believed was blasphemy!
He killed early Christians to protect the faith he knew. But he was wrong! And, Christ knocked him down and rebuilt him.
St. Paul, who wrote to the Romans, “We were indeed buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, by the glory of the Father, we too might live in the newness of life,” he was himself raised from the death of hatred and misunderstanding of God’s plan.
St. Paul, in the newness of his own life after baptism, spread the Gospel and helped others and he helps us to know Christ through his letters to the early Church communities.
As you reflect on how your life might be influenced by today’s society of social media, music, pornography, gossip, and more, know that you need to die to the ways of the world and rise again. I encourage you to open your Bible to Paul’s letters during Ordinary Time this summer and into the fall to learn what St. Paul wants to share with you about the life of Christ.
In all the wonders of this world and amongst the entertainment and distractions, have you and I allowed these things to change us? We are formed by all that we read, we are formed by all that we see, and we are formed by all that we experience. For better or for worse!
Can you, like St. Paul did throughout his life, look at how you are experiencing life and see where Christ is working and where you might need to allow Him to work? Or, do you have it all figured out? Do you recognize sin in your life? Are you willing to call sin SIN and offer it up to Him?
If you are like me and often get caught in the routine of life and even in the Church don’t live in the moment of the beauty of each action, each symbol, each word, might you be willing to focus today as you go out into the world!
Like Christ, we have died through the waters of Baptism! And, like Christ we have risen. Let us not take our Faith for granted, let us not take our community for granted, rather let us invest our whole selves into our families, our faith community and our roles in this society! “So that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, by the glory of the Father, we too might live in the newness of life”. Amen.
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